2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
The renowned social psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who has devoted fifty years of his scientific career to this topic, offers a recipe for countering brainwashing.
- Practice at times deviant behavior (sometimes be a deviant); break your usual role and personality image; learn to accept rejection; play with observing yourself from different angles.
- Practice saying "I made a mistake", "I'm sorry", "I was wrong", "… and I learned from this mistake."
- Be aware of the general perspective that others use to frame a problem (situation, event), as accepting their frame in their terms gives them a power advantage. Be prepared to step back and reject this framework altogether, suggest your alternative before discussing the details.
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Be prepared to suffer short-term losses in money, self-esteem, time, and effort, rather than to suffer frustration over a detrimental commitment that keeps you trapped. Come to terms with "undervalued costs", ignore the temptation and move on with vital knowledge learned from your mistake or wrong decision and allowing you not to repeat it.
- Be prepared to step back from any situation and say to yourself and the controlling other, "I can continue to live without your love, friendship, affection, mistreatment, even if doing so could hurt - until you stop doing X and start doing Y."
- Always avoid having to take questionable actions that the change agent insists should be done immediately; get out of the situation, take time to think, get impartial additional opinions, never rush to agree right away.
- Insist on clear explanations, without ambiguous speech; paraphrase your view of this. Don't let change provocateurs make you feel stupid; weak explanations are signs of deception or lack of adequate knowledge in the allegedly informed interlocutor.
- Be sensitive to situational demands, however trivial they may seem: role relationships, symbols of power, titles, pressures, rules, ostentatious consensus, responsibilities and obligations.
- Be especially wary of establishing a host-guest relationship in which you are encouraged to feel and act like a guest, thus limiting your freedom of choice and action.
- Remember, there is no such thing as genuine, unconditional love from strangers; love, friendship, and trust must develop over time and usually involve sharing, overcoming, and compassion - some work and commitment on your part.
- When you find yourself in an environment of impersonal influence, individualize (single out from a number of similar ones) yourself and the agent of influence in order to establish mutual humanity, individuality, common interests; break through role constraints through eye-to-eye contact, personal names, and praise; own your and partner's personal identities.
- Avoid "total situations" that are unusual and in which you have little control and freedom; immediately define the limits of your autonomy; check the psychological and physical outputs: accept small fights as an acceptable cost of avoiding what could be a greater loss if carried out.
- Practice "independent participation" ("impartial interest"), occupy your mind with critical assessment, turn off your emotions in confrontations with those who are powerful manipulators in a Machiavellian way.
- Greed and self-inflating flattery will take manipulative mind controllers and scam agents far, but only if you allow yourself to be seduced by these false motives; resist their temptation by targeting the most honest, confident person you know.
- Recognize your symptoms of guilt and guilt inductions by others; never act out of guilt. Be tolerant of wine as part of your human nature, do not rush to improve it in the ways others are planning for you.
- Be mindful of what you are doing in a given situation, and do not let habit and standard current procedure force you to act recklessly in what is a slightly different situation.
- There is no need to maintain consistency between your actions at different points in time; you can change and not adhere to the false standard of being "secure" and maintaining the status quo.
- It is not enough to openly express disagreements or emotionally suffer from illegal activities or changes in the rules of the game - you must be willing to openly disobey, defend, defy, and suffer the consequences of such behavior.
And although this set of recommendations is more about social relationships, in my opinion, they are ideally suited to interpersonal relationships.
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